Our compatriot Mati Diop has won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale 2024 for her documentary Dahomey. The film addresses the issue of the restitution of twenty-six works of art to the Republic of Benin in the context of the Sarr-Savoy report.

In 2019, Atlantique, the director’s first feature, a strange film on the subject of emigration set in the Dakar suburb of Thiaroye, won several awards, including the prestigious Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

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In Berlin, a talented filmmaker and a committed woman, but above all a Senegalese woman who makes our country proud, was crowned. Winning the Golden Bear at the Berlinale is a great accolade at such a young age, and augurs well for her career in the 7th art.

To my great regret, Mati Diop’s award has gone almost unnoticed by the national press, which is bogged down in the ups and downs of postponement, dialogue and the political turmoil to which all our country’s structures devote far too much time. Senegal must honour Mati Diop because she has achieved something great and because she symbolises what we called from 2002 onwards « Senegal that wins ». Indeed, following the Lions’ triumph at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan, this expression became infectious. The national team A beat defending champions France before reaching the quarter-finals, a first for an African nation since Cameroon in 1990. Since then, Senegal has been collecting continental football titles and has become a nation familiar with major international tournaments.

Mati Diop is a symbol of the culture of this Senegal that is winning in the wake of the revival of Senegalese cinema. At Fespaco in 2013, Alain Gomis’ Tey won the Golden Stallion and the Bronze Stallion went to Moussa Touré’s The Canoe. In Ouaga in 2021, Moly Kane’s Serbi will win the Golden Colt for best short fiction film. The list of our film achievements in recent years is not exhaustive.

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Mati Diop has given us such satisfaction and convinced us that perhaps all is not lost in this country. Vulgarity and mediocrity have not yet completely buried Senegal. Alongside the Senegal of the thugs and their sponsors, there is the Senegal of the people who work quietly and discreetly, and through their successes are working to preserve our country’s place on the world map.

Mati Diop dedicated her prize to Senegalese democracy activists and to the Palestinians currently under Israeli bombardment. Because her talent has been recognised and rewarded by her peers, her message has more force than the petitions of individuals seeking fleeting glory on the back of children’s corpses.

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Mati Diop is the Senegal that wins, and that propels in the little child of Pikine or Sinthiou Diongui an ambition one day to be celebrated in Berlin, Cannes or Carthage. This can only be achieved through boldness in one’s work and solitude in one’s efforts, in addition, of course, to favourable conditions for the blossoming of national talent. Every son of Senegal has a dream. The State has an obligation to enable our country’s children to become the next Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Fatou Diome, Sadio Mané, Mati Diop, Mbougar Sarr, Astou Traoré, Germaine Acogny…

A nation needs to set an example. Hence the importance of celebrating Mati Diop’s successes as an example to all those children who dream of one day becoming actors or film-makers. In the same vein of setting an example, the Republic must punish those who have offered Senegal’s youth nothing but the looting and burning of public property, insults to senior officials, violence and death. That is justice. And that’s how you instil patriotism and republicanism in the heart of every child of Senegal.

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Seeing Mati Diop on this stage, radiant, proud and dignified, is personally very moving. I’m thinking of her uncle Djibril Diop Mambéty, Wasis and Idrissa Diop. Our country has immense creative potential to offer the world to make it more beautiful and more habitable. I’m also thinking about transmission, and I’m reminded of Jaurès” phrase: « It is by going towards the sea that the river remains faithful to its source« .

By Hamidou ANNE / hamidou.anne@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE